Dinner
by awintea
Summary: kyoharu // Dinner was always a formal event for me. I can't remember it being anything else // oneshot. kyoyacentric.


**Dinner**

A KyoHaru ficcy. It is … very strange. xD But anyway, read on.

The ending has been changed, as suggested by the review from Michiko Yokisama. (Thank you!)

**x Dinner x revised 08.05.23 **

Dinner was always a formal event.

The dining room itself is formidable, one of the more Western-styled rooms of the mansion, with its long, mahogany table and its tall chairs with their elaborate carved designs.

All would arrive at the table at the same time, with our Western-styled collars sharp and our ties perfectly straight, sitting at our respective seats. Father sat at the head of the table, with my eldest brother to his immediate right, and Akito to his immediate left. I always sat two seats to the right of my eldest brother, the gap dividing us seeming so large, though it is only a chair. Mother didn't often eat with us. Fuyumi used to, sitting directly to the right of me. After she married though, my father would frown upon her staying. So she would not.

After all were seated, the dishes would arrive in the hands of servants, both Western-styled yet again. Each of the seated would hold the utensils properly - fork in left, and knife in right. The appetisers came first, then the main courses, then the desserts, which were never anything too sweet or sugary. Father does not like sweets.

Conversations at the table are never initiated by anybody other than Father. Speaking out of turn was discouraged. Conversation was always methodical. Father speaks, son speaks. Father questions, son answers. There was never anything more, but there was often less.

This was how my meals have gone for as long as I can remember.

x x x

'A buffet, Kyoya-senpai?'

I nod without looking up from my Pineapple laptop, my fingers flying away on the keyboard. I know who is speaking without looking. The only people who would call me 'senpai' were the Hitachiin twins and Haruhi, and the twins would not speak to me in such a manner.

I could recognise her voice anyway, with or without the 'senpai'.

'Tamaki insisted,' I reply simply.

A laugh. 'You don't like buffets, senpai?'

I raise an eyebrow, taking my eyes of the laptop screen to stare into the brown eyes of Fujioka Haruhi. 'When did I ever say that, Haruhi?'

Fujioka Haruhi. The only scholarship student of Ouran High School. The only commoner at said school. The only female member of the Ouran High School Host Club. The only person who was able to differentiate between Hitachiin Hikaru and Hitachiin Kaoru. The only person who could so easily see beyond my intentions, see beyond the simple sentences that I say and understand what I am implying, even if I don't wish it.

There are a whole lot of only's.

Haruhi smiles. 'Well, do you?'

I hesitate. What should I say? 'It doesn't matter if I want to go or not,' I answer smoothly. 'Tamaki would be adamant either way, as this buffet is for one of his "commoner ventures".'

Haruhi laughs again. 'It'd be much more of a commoner venture if we weren't riding in a limo to get there,' she says drily.

'But it'd be so much more uncomfortable to ride in one of those...' Hitachiin Hikaru speaks up, sitting directly left of Haruhi in the limousine. 'One of those... what were those things called again, Kaoru?'

Kaoru shakes his head, sitting to the left of Hikaru. 'I'm not sure either, Hikaru. Those little cars with drivers you pay to drive you...'

Hunny shivers. 'Those are so scary! They're so small and everything...'

Mori pats Hunny on the shoulder, and turns to Haruhi to speak. 'What are they called?' Mori's speech is always short and to the point.

'Taxis,' Haruhi says, sighing. 'That's the word you want.'

Hikaru and Kaoru beam. 'Exactly!'

Hikaru then frowns. 'And we're already sticking all of us into the _one_ limo.'

Tamaki then exclaims, grinning, 'But that is the whole point! We have to travel in discomfort, like how the commoners do daily!'

I glance at Haruhi, who seemed a bit vexed. I can easily imagine what is on her mind: Discomfort?

The car slows to a halt, and Tamaki is positively glowing with anticipation. 'A buffet, Kyoya, a buffet! Aren't you so excited?' He jumps out of the car to the crowd that has already formed around the limo. Of course, he has to talk to everyone there.

The rest of us get out of the limo quietly, while Tamaki speaks to the commoners.

Upon entering, Haruhi is about to speak to a waiter, but I stop her. 'We've already made reservations, in one of the more... quiet rooms.' I look at the bustling crowd of tables with a bit of aversion. There were so many of them, and they were so loud as well.

Haruhi utters something that sounds like 'rich bastards'.

A waiter spots us. 'Ah, Ohtori-sama! Thank you for gracing us with your presence at our restaurant!'

I smile my smile, thinking deep inside that a buffet that has most of its food being deep-fried did not deserve the title of 'restaurant'. 'Tanaka-san. Would you please show us our seats?'

'Oh, right away, Ohtori-sama.' The waiter walks away.

As we follow the waiter, Haruhi comments naïvely, 'You seem to know so many people, Kyoya-senpai.'

I continue to smile. 'I have a wide network of connections, Haruhi. I assumed that you knew that by now.'

'Yeah, Kyoya-senpai's like a mafia boss,' Hikaru adds cheekily.

Kaoru adds to his brother's remark. 'Has all the connections, and knows how to use them.'

Then, they speak simultaneously, grinning maliciously as per usual. 'If you're not careful, he'll kick you out of town!'

We sit ourselves down at a round table, with Mori-senpai to my left, and an empty seat to my right, for the idiot who was still jabbering away outside. Hani-senpai is to the left of Mori-senpai, as was expected. Hikaru and Kaoru sit next to the empty seat beside me. Hikaru has his feet up on one chair, and next to the chair he is resting his legs on is another empty seat. The extra seat is as reservations are never made for seven. Seven is too uneven.

Haruhi stands though.

Hani-senpai asks cutely, 'Haru-chan, why are you standing?'

She doesn't answer, instead staring through the door of our room to the buffet.

She asks in a very interested tone, 'Do you think they have ootoro?'

Everything seems to fall to a standstill. All eyes turn to Haruhi, who stands at the door, peering out. One can easily imagine her wide brown eyes, and the slight smile on her face as she envisages ootoro on her plate.

My own eyes widen. Was there ootoro at this buffet? Why had I not found out such information beforehand?

Then, Tamaki bursts into the doorway, two plates of food in hand. He is pouting, complaining away. 'How could you leave your father outside in the cold?' he asks Haruhi, who still stands in the doorway. They are mere centimetres away from each other.

Haruhi replies bluntly, 'It's warm outside, senpai. And you were too busy talking to notice our leaving.'

Tamaki then sticks out a plate. On it, is a large pile of badly-cut ootoro. He apologises. 'I'm sorry, it was the best one I could find out there.'

I cannot see Haruhi's face from where I sit. But I can picture it. She is smiling the way that she does, that little smile that is so normal, but yet... so endearing.

'Thank you, senpai,' she says cheerfully, taking the plate. Then, she sits down at the table.

Next to me.

The balance is disturbed, as Haruhi eats her ootoro cheerfully, unaware of what she has done. The magic is offset for a second, and the immovability is moved.

'Ah, Haruhi,' Tamaki says. 'I think that's my spot.' He smiles. 'You can always sit on daddy's lap if you want to-'

Haruhi glares at him, and then returns to her happy eating of ootoro.

Tamaki sits himself next to Hikaru.

'Well,' he says, trying to start off a conversation.

I say nothing. Neither does anybody else. All eyes are on the girl eating ootoro, still blissfully unconscious of what she has done. I look at the girl sitting next to me, in all her plainness, with her commoner ways.

She finishes off the ootoro, and happily says, 'I'm going to go get seconds.' She leaves the table. The six of us sit.

One by one, we leave the circular table, heading for the buffet counters.

I immediately head for the hors d'oeuvres, but find them not to my liking. I look at the other appetisers, but there is nothing extraordinary. I sigh, wondering what I was expecting.

'I suggest the cream of mushroom soup and the bread,' a soft voice says next to me.

I respond, 'Do you believe it is up to my standards?' I turn, smirking, to look at Haruhi.

She rolls her eyes. 'You rich people put your standards too high.' But she smiles. 'But I think you'll like it anyway.'

She goes on to the next counter, picking up some chicken wings and some onion rings.

I take her advice and pour some soup into a bowl and put it on my plate. I take some bread along with it.

I return to the table, but nobody is seated yet. I sit in a different seat - the one that Hikaru had previously put his feet on. The one that was next to Tamaki. This, I decide, will realign everything.

Mori-senpai and Hani-senpai return next, taking the two seats to my left, where Hikaru and Kaoru had been sitting.

Tamaki and Haruhi return at the same time, with Tamaki chattering away in Haruhi's ear. Tamaki pauses, glancing about the table. Haruhi does not.

She promptly seats herself next to me, and starts eating again. This time, she has jelly and cake on her plate, with the chicken wings and onion rings pushed to the side. She spoons out the jelly, and puts the spoon in her mouth, letting it linger there for a few moments.

Tamaki sits next to Hikaru, and asks, 'Kyoya, you're drinking soup?'

I nod silently, my spoon scooping out the soup and placing it in my mouth robotically.

'Kyoya-senpai,' Haruhi says. All is quiet.

'What?' I reply.

Haruhi rips a piece of bread from my plate, and dips it in my soup. She pops it into her mouth, smiling. 'That's how you're supposed to eat it. You don't need a spoon.'

I smile as well. 'But that would be unrefined of me, would it not, Haruhi?'

She laughs. 'But it tastes better. You have to let loose sometimes, Kyoya-senpai, and smile.'

I reply, 'I'm smiling now, am I not?'

She shakes her head. 'Not for real.'

My eyes grow wide. What does she mean?

She takes a bite out of her chicken wing viciously, shaking me out of my thoughts. I then realise that nobody else had spoken during our little repartee.

Slowly, conversation starts again. Tamaki whines to the twins about their harassment of Haruhi, Hani-senpai talks earnestly about how badly baked the cake he is eating tastes to Mori.

Haruhi simply eats.

I say nothing.

The rest of the night goes on like so, with Haruhi simply eating, and myself saying nothing. I do rip the bread and dip it into the soup (all the while cursing at how flaky the bread is and how watery the soup is) and I eat it in the way Haruhi ate it.

The dinner is finished. We all pay our part, except Haruhi, whom we all fork in for instinctively. There was no need to discuss; we all knew that we were going to pay for Haruhi no matter what anyway.

We leave by limousine. Hikaru and Kaoru's chauffeur drives them home, as does Mori and Hani's. Tamaki offers to drive Haruhi back to her home, but she refuses stubbornly.

'I'll just _walk_, senpai,' she says exasperatedly. 'It's not that far.'

'But, Haruhiiii,' he whines. 'What if you get mugged? Or attacked? I can't let my darling daughter into the hands-'

'I think that your hands are the most worrisome currently, Tamaki,' I say smoothly.

Tamaki hides in his limo, sulking. 'Fine,' he mutters. 'I'll go home _by myself_. _All alone_.'

He looks back out, hoping that Haruhi would relent. She doesn't.

Tamaki's limo drives away, leaving Haruhi and me standing in front of the 'restaurant'.

'I'll be going then, Kyoya-senpai,' Haruhi says. 'Good night.'

I nod.

However, she doesn't leave, lingering as if she is not sure what to do next.

I am equally as uncertain, but say freely, 'Would you like a ride back?'

Haruhi smiles. The chauffeur opens the door to the limousine and she steps in. I step in after her.

The drive to Haruhi's apartment is completely silent.

I walk her up to her door, and watch as Haruhi fumbles with her keys. Ranka is not home; he is working at the bar. I know his schedule exactly.

She opens the door, and walks inside, closing the door behind her with a cheery, 'Thank you, senpai. Let's have dinner again sometime.'

xxx

Dinner, when completely unorthodox, is completely foreign to me, with its lack of seating arrangement, lack of courses, and lack of rules. It has its own sort of etiquette - nothing that I have been taught before. It is something entirely alien to me - which is an unusual feeling.

But not at all unpleasant.

**x owari**

…That came out exactly the opposite of how I wanted it to. I don't know. This is so iffy. xD It's not … I really don't know.

But anyway, please review to give your comments and suggestions on how to make this better. -awinchan


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